Hand skiving help

[wrz0170]

Hi everyone.   As practice, I was trying to hand skive 1.2-1.4mm leather in preparation for my project which calls for skiving about 1.0mm.    I was using a Tandy Super Skiver and well, it sucked.  No matter how delicate of a touch that I tried, my cuts were vastly uneven and it pretty much ripped and tore up the edges.  Absolutely no uniformity in the cuts.    I’m sure some operator fault is there.   Skiving is a skill until itself especially with thinner leather.  

I have to ask; is there a better knife/tool to learn on like a very sharp, straight or slanted skiving knife or even a round knife?  I don’t mind putting the time in to practice but if it’s a better knife choice thing, I would rather practice with that    

Any insights,  tips or suggestions would be appreciated!   Thanks!

William

[bikermutt07]

With practice you can do more than 90% of your cutting with a good round knife.

Buy Al Stohlman's Leather Tools book. It is a wealth of knowledge. It will teach you just about everything you need to know about using and sharpening your tools.

Skiving is hard and I haven't done very much of it. But, my most successful attempts have been with the round knife.

I have had very little luck with the Tandy skiver and super skiver.

[wrz0170]

9 minutes ago, bikermutt07 said:

With practice you can do more than 90% of your cutting with a good round knife.

Buy Al Stohlman's Leather Tools book. It is a wealth of knowledge. It will teach you just about everything you need to know about using and sharpening your tools.

Skiving is hard and I haven't done very much of it. But, my most successful attempts have been with the round knife.

I have had very little luck with the Tandy skiver and super skiver.

Funny you say that. I put my name on the waiting list for one of Terry’s round knives.   Still waiting for confirmation from him but it sounds like it will be at least 6 month wait.  He said he was about 700 knives behind.   That said, I am toying with the idea of a Weaver round knife for the interim.   The Weaver round knife appears to be well reviewed and I can learn to sharpen it.  If Terry chooses to hold off on adding names, which I completely understand, I will look at better options?

[480volt]

Bruce Johnson has a Rose, a Gomph, a couple Osborne Newarks and an unmarked on his site, currently. Always been happy dealing with him

[ScoobyNewbie]

I was looking on a site called japangoods.com. They had leather planers. Those looked interesting. I’m not sure how well they would do on thin stuff, but the theory sounds... interesting.

[bikermutt07]

@wrz0170, yeah Terry is a victim of his own success. I don't have any idea what he can crank out in a month. I do know he won't ship anything less than perfect. 

[Northmount]

Lisa Sorrell does a lot of skiving when making her custom boots.  She has skiving knives for sale here https://sorrellnotionsandfindings.com/?s=skiving&post_type=product

She also has a couple videos on her youtube channel

Tom

 

[wrz0170]

Thanks for all the great suggestions.  Not quite sure what I will be moving forward with yet, but it will not with be the super skiver or it’s cousin.

[zuludog]

This is how I did skiving when I started

In Britain, and I assume in USA, you can get very cheap snap blade knives from discount/bargain stores, as low as a display card of 4 knives for £1, say $1-50. They're not exactly top class, but to be fair, the blades are very sharp & thin

Lay the leather on a flat hard surface; extend the blade, and lay it across the leather at a very slight angle, depending on the thickness to be removed. It helps if the leather is dampened slightly. Extend the blade more or less fully; then  push-pull or 'saw' across the leather, at the same time pushing forwards

Later I made a few skiving knives from old hacksaw blades - a simple 'chisel front' knife or an asymmetric Japanese style leather knife  from 40mm hacksaw blade; and a kiridashi style knife from 25mm hacksaw blade

I use them all, but I've got used to the Japanese style knife now, and use it more & more. You can get them reasonably cheaply; or pay more if you wish. Search YouTube for 'Japanese Leather Knife'

Whatever knife you get you will have to learn about sharpening

 

[gigi]

Few more ideas on this topic: 

 

[immiketoo]

 

Here's the tool I use.  It works until I can afford a bell skiver.

[chrisash]

I use the Osborne safety beveler and find it very easy to control and get a great skive

One thing I learnt from others was to work down a edge by doing small skives at 90 degrees to the edge rather than trying to run the blade down the edge lengthwise. that is if you have a edge say 6 inches long and half a inch wide, skive lots of small half inch skives rather that trying to do a long skive along the whole 6 inches

Experts can use round knives and other ways but that is a long term plan which only comes with loads of errors and time

[wrz0170]

1 hour ago, chrisash said:

I use the Osborne safety beveler and find it very easy to control and get a great skive

One thing I learnt from others was to work down a edge by doing small skives at 90 degrees to the edge rather than trying to run the blade down the edge lengthwise. that is if you have a edge say 6 inches long and half a inch wide, skive lots of small half inch skives rather that trying to do a long skive along the whole 6 inches

Experts can use round knives and other ways but that is a long term plan which only comes with loads of errors and time

Thanks!   I wound up getting a 3/4” skiver from Lisa Sorrell from a recommendation a few posts up. It was like $30 and shipped quickly.  Out of the box it was sharp.  But me being me,  clamped it on my Wicked Edge system and got it where it pushed cut quite nicely.  Now I just strop using horse butt hide after several cuts to maintain the edge.   I also do the 90° to the edge.  While I still have a bit to go, I feel I cut my learning curve significantly.   You hit a key point.  The ability to control it.  MUCH better than the Super Skiver.  That thing can sit in the bag and collect dust.  

Have a round knife as well from Weaver.   Learning to sharpen it.   Long way off from skiving with it but I will get there.  I’m on the waiting list for a Knipschield round knife  Maybe by time it comes next year, I might be able to do something with it other than look at it

William

[immiketoo]

Now your cooking with gas!  Lisa sells a good knife.  The super skiver makes a good doorstop   I kid.  There ar those that can wield that think like magic.  I am not one of them.

[wrz0170]

29 minutes ago, immiketoo said:

Now your cooking with gas!  Lisa sells a good knife.  The super skiver makes a good doorstop   I kid.  There ar those that can wield that think like magic.  I am not one of them.

I quickly found I am definitely not one to wield one like magic or even remotely close so it.  It may wind up as a door stop! Lol.  

What I like about Lisa’s skiver, the control and I can skive from a definitive line to the edge.  Very neat. Very clean so far.  I can’t rip long strips with it yet, so not the fastest. But it’s getting the job done hitting it at 90° angles.   I will most likely invest in the 1” version.  

[immiketoo]

Clean is the most important.  Speed will come with practice and strength development.  Its an unusual motion.  And hey, everyone needs a doorstop!

[Bodra]

Most beautiful skiving i've ever seen! Hope you learn something from video.

 

https://youtu.be/mtdpJS6mJpY?t=109

 

Edited October 3, 2018 by Bodra

[wrz0170]

2 hours ago, Bodra said:

Most beautiful skiving i've ever seen! Hope you learn something from video.

 

https://youtu.be/mtdpJS6mJpY?t=109

 

Thanks for the video!  Dude has some mad skiving skills.  Sharp knife doesn’t hurt either!   Aside from that, I learned a brilliant way of preventing my thread getting caught on my stitching pony!  Will be addressing that.  

[Aven]

I was taught to skive like the guy in the video and the way Lisa shows, working on a flat, smooth surface, (glass or marble works great), knife hand over the leather and the knife point on the marble.  Keeping the cutting edge at an angle to the work and smoothly, gently pull towards you.  If you keep the cutting edge angle  shown at 1:53 in the Kinnari video, its possible to get a good skive with a safety skiver.  You'll have to change out the blade often, but it will do a good job.  It takes a bit of time, blades and practice, but in the not so long run it's much cheaper to buy a good knife than 1000's of replacement blades for the skiver.

[immiketoo]

3 hours ago, Aven said:

I was taught to skive like the guy in the video and the way Lisa shows, working on a flat, smooth surface, (glass or marble works great), knife hand over the leather and the knife point on the marble.  Keeping the cutting edge at an angle to the work and smoothly, gently pull towards you.  If you keep the cutting edge angle  shown at 1:53 in the Kinnari video, its possible to get a good skive with a safety skiver.  You'll have to change out the blade often, but it will do a good job.  It takes a bit of time, blades and practice, but in the not so long run it's much cheaper to buy a good knife than 1000's of replacement blades for the skiver.

This.  My video is just showing the guy I sharpened the for that it works the way he uses is.  The technique is terrible, but he skives sandal straps on the sole while the shoe is still in the last.  He complained that the angle of the blade wouldn’t work for pulling it toward him.  I was just showing him that it would work.  Disregard the shitty technique.

[Bodra]

8 hours ago, wrz0170 said:

Thanks for the video!  Dude has some mad skiving skills.  Sharp knife doesn’t hurt either!   Aside from that, I learned a brilliant way of preventing my thread getting caught on my stitching pony!  Will be addressing that.  

After posting this video I tried his skiving technique with my skiving knife and I was suprised with result. I think I will be making new skiving knife similar to his, without wooden handle and with more shallow angle. I guess now its time to order some steel.

[wrz0170]

4 hours ago, Bodra said:

After posting this video I tried his skiving technique with my skiving knife and I was suprised with result. I think I will be making new skiving knife similar to his, without wooden handle and with more shallow angle. I guess now its time to order some steel.

Nice!   What kind of steel will you be using?  Keep us posted.  

[Bodra]

1 hour ago, wrz0170 said:

Nice!   What kind of steel will you be using?  Keep us posted.  

80CRV2

 

Cheapest tool/knife steel I could find. Dont get me wrong here, it's not rubbish, it's a good steel, but it is cheapest amongst all other high carbon steels I found in EU shop. It's also known as L2 steel. I am not an expert nor have a lot of experience in working with metal so when I make a mistake I dont want it to be expensive  I'll get a flat stock of 300*40*3.25 mm and start from there. I already tried making skiving knife and head/round knife and they turned out great. Not much fan of a head knife tho, but I really like skiving knife only downside is it looses sharp edge very fast and that's why I'll copy old design and make it with better steel, and make one with shallow angle we talked earlier to see how it performs at skiving.

 

http://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/80052-handmade-leather-tools/?tab=comments#comment-534785

 

Edited October 4, 2018 by Bodra

[HardenGoods]

On 2018-09-23 at 10:35 PM, 480volt said:

Bruce Johnson has a Rose, a Gomph, a couple Osborne Newarks and an unmarked on his site, currently. Always been happy dealing with him

Me too!